Forgive me, I know we discussed this before but my thread was deleted as I was awaiting some answers. When I was at my LHS a few months ago, one of the owners there told me that the glossy version was for passenger service, but he said that back then, the ones that didn’t have “enough shine” to them were used for pulling freight. Is he correct in this assumption?
Does anybody on here actually use an HO Class J to pull freight, if you do, or don’t, would it actually be prototypical, does engine number matter, or gloss vs. dull paint?
I really want another class J, but it would look kinda silly pulling passenger cars right next to the other one I have.
In 1958, some of the J’s were used in local freight service after they were replaced on passenger trains by leased diesels.
The difference was the dog house on the tender and I have read the tandem rod was removed between the 2nd and third driver. Not all J’s were modified. On page 70 of the Norforlk and Western Steam book, there is a Picture of the 600 class engine with the doghouse and extra tender after it was pulled from passenger service. The aux tender was in black paint only.
Maybe the N&W historical society could tell you more about the use of the J’s late in 1958 or 59. I don’t believe all of the J’s were used for freight service after they were removed from passenger service.
All of my HO J class engines are the regular paint, not the excursion glossy paint. The 611 was modified with a double headlight in 1981 for excursion service, which was not done in regular service.
This is HO and using the J on local freight after a back shop visit would be OK since most railroads tested the locomotives on a short freight train before going back in the normal passenger pool after rebuilding.
As an example, there are pictures of SP GS4’s just out of the back shop on a local freight.
BLI produced the passenger version only, not the late version with the dog house. You could certainly mount the dog house on the BLI version. I purchased an extra tender shell from the A class which had the dog house on it. The part could be removed and mounted on a J, but I like mine with passenger cars behind it.
I believe when the J’s went into freight service, besides the doghouse for the head-end brakeman, they also got the auxilliary water tenders.
There wouldn’t be a difference in the paint or finish. A new engine would be shiny at first but even if regularly cleaned would normally become dull/flat pretty soon. Passenger engines would be cleaned more often than freight engines, and towards the end of steam many railroads weren’t putting a lot of time into steam maintenance, but really a bright shiny clean steam engine wasn’t the norm.